The first man and his place in creation : considered on the principles of science and common sense from a Christian point of view : with an appendix on the Negro / by George Moore.

Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first man and his place in creation : considered on the principles of science and common sense from a Christian point of view : with an appendix on the Negro / by George Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    83/424 (page 47)
    employed by Oken to define science, and, scientifi- cally (may we say, impiously ?), God Himself. This philosopher tells ns that 'there is no other science than that which treats of nothing.' 'Mathematics is based upon nothing, and arises out of nothing' (as we see in his work). Then ' The Eternal is the nothing of of nature.' ' Man is God wholly manifested,' and yet * Grod manifesting is an infinite sphere,' and ' the world is G-od rotating.' Truly Oken's theory of existence is, like his own mathematics, ' based upon nothing,' and may be summed up in Horace Smith's imitation of Byron, And nought is everything, and everything is nought. When we accept Oken's hypothesis, or any other con- cerning sea-mucus and germinal vesicles as the origin of man, we have a certain difficulty to overcome not altogether dependent on climate. We may suppose the primordial mucus or the stray vesicle, brought by whatever water-power we please, and deposited in an appropriate spot, say among the Himalayas, which name, by-the-bye, means the snowy region, and there- fore, perhaps, not the most suitable for the incubation of an unborn life. But somewhere let there be the said mucus, turning into man by virtue of sunbeams and slush, the difficulty is this: How came it that another mass of sea-mucus happened to be thereabout just at that time, which mucus turned into a woman as a match for the man? Our philosophical instructor obligingly leaves us to the mercy of our imagination